“Captain, the Aventine is engaging the Shadow vessel,” Lennier said with a small amount of awe in his voice. “The Shadows are breaking off pursuit, targeting the Aventine.”

“What about the mines?” Sheridan asked.

“Eight clear now,” Lennier reported. “More than enough for the Rangers to escape.”

“Send the signal,” Sheridan said with a nod. “Then bring us about to help the Aventine.”

“Signal sent,” Delenn said after a moment, touching a few of the crystals on the control panel and waiting for their melodic response.

“Good,” Sheridan responded. “Bring us about.”

“Captain,” Lennier brought Sheridan’s attention back to the view screen, where the Shadow vessel was focusing its pink energy weapon onto the Aventine.

--------------------

“Some sort of high density particle beam,” Seven explained as the bridge rocked violently. “Ablative armour down to thirty two percent.” She reported, knowing that one hit from the Shadow weapon had dropped their shields down by more than forty percent. “We can’t take another hit Captain.”

“Aye,” Julian responded as he ran another order through the computer, he wasn’t a pilot by any sense of the word but was slowly getting to grips with the Aventine’s way of moving through space.

“See if you can keep them off our backs,” Ezri turned to G’Fokk. “Bring them around to the Mark Twelve’s.”

“Aye Captain,” G’Fokk snarled out, his fingers playing along the control panel as he fired another phaser burst at the Shadow ship before bringing the Mark Twelve cannons around to bear. “Firing.” G’Fokk announced as he let rip a burst from the powerful Mark Twelve phaser cannons, watching as their bright white energy ripped through one of the spiked arms leading off of the Shadow ship, causing it to look like it was bleeding black liquid into space.

“Keep it up,” Ezri said, watching as a bright green burst of energy hit the Shadow ship at the same time, making it pause in space.

“The White Star,” Marcus commented with a smile.

“Bring all weapons to bear,” Ezri ordered, wishing the torpedo tubes were active as she stared at the black foreboding vessel on their view screen. “Fire at will.”

“Aye,” G’Fokk snarled as he let loose another barrage of phaser blasts, watching as the Shadow ship turned to the White Star and started moving towards them.

“The vessel is targeting the White Star Captain,” Seven announced. “I’m reading an extremely powerful weapons build up from within the ship.”

“Keep firing,” Ezri shouted, watching as more bright white pulses of light shot out from the Aventine’s saucer section towards the Shadow ship, making it shudder and twist in space, she watched as three more phaser cannon blasts impacted the ship, knocking it to the side as it shot out a beam of purple light that impacted the White Star along the top of the hull. “Report,” Ezri asked, turning to Seven for information.

“The White Star sustained heavy damage,” Seven explained sharply. “I cannot tell you more as sensors are still unable to penetrate the hull.”

“Target the Shadow vessel, full beam,” Ezri glared at the view screen. “Give them everything we’ve got.” She frowned, wishing now they had torpedo tubes so G’Fokk could ram a quantum torpedo or two down the throat of that menacing ship.

G’Fokk didn’t even respond, he simply continued working, sending blasts of phaser cannon bursts alongside the orange beams of transphasic energy, cutting into the Shadow ship for several seconds at a time.

“Put us between the Shadow ship and the White Star,” Ezri ordered down to Gruhn, watching on the view screen as the Shadow ship seemed to be backing off from the White Star slightly. “Target that ship with…” She paused as the Shadow ship seemed to shimmer in space slightly, the same way it had appeared originally before fading from view completely. “Seven?” She practically demanded, turning in her chair to face the sensor station.

“Unknown Captain,” Seven reported. “The vessel is not on our sensors, I am not picking up any indication of cloaking technology or transphase interference.”

“Where did they go then?” Sam asked, standing up from his chare and glaring at the view screen, half wishing he could have an answer to the weird things he had seen so far in this universe.

“Perhaps they simply left,” Seven suggested simply.

“A warrior would not leave combat,” G’Fokk snarled out.

“Signal the White Star,” Ezri frowned. “Keep sensors running, I want to know the second if that ship returns.” She ordered firmly before the view screen switched view to show Captain Sheridan, the bridge of the White Star around him was damaged severely, with sparks raining from the ceiling and various stations around the bridge. “Captain, is everything alright over there?”

“We took a good hit,” Sheridan frowned. “Jump engines are offline, weapons are down, hell, we’re lucky still to have power after that. Life support is barely active and we’ve got casualties. What’s happening out there?”

“The Shadow ship seems to have vanished from our sensors,” Ezri explained. “We’re not reading any indication of them in the nearby vicinity.”

“They would not just leave,” Ambassador Delenn spoke up. “Not without what they came here for.”

“Perhaps they weren’t expecting a fight,” Sam commented from the side. “We both got a few good shots in, maybe it was enough to make them think twice about this planet.”

“Thank you,” Sheridan said graciously, knowing if life support failed on the White Star they didn’t have nearly enough room in the Minbari shuttle to evacuate everyone.

“I’ll prepare the medical team to receive wounded,” Ezri nodded, signalling for Sam to contact Doctor Bashir and let him know they would need his assistance. “We can send some runabouts as well to help transferring people over.”

“That would be appreciated,” Sheridan nodded. “And a way to contact the Minbari home world if you could.”

“If you provide the coordinates we can offer a tow,” Ezri smiled back. “It might not be as fast as your hyperspace travel, but it’ll be better than waiting here for that ship to come back and finish the job.”

Sheridan paused before talking with Delenn for a second in hushed tones, obviously dubious about giving away Minbari information to an unknown race.

“That would be appreciated Captain,” Ambassador Delenn smiled softly as she stepped forwards towards the view screen. “We have a colony on Sh’Lell’Tha, it is on the rim of Minbari territory. I will bring the coordinates with me when I come aboard.”